From the Bookshelf of Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014…

The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6)

Marcel Proust,

C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator)

Start date: August 31, 2014

Finish date: November 1, 2014

Discussion: The Captive & The Fugitive

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The Captive & The Fugitive

Week ending 11/15: The Fugitive, finish
By Renato · 45 posts · 26 views

last updated Dec 17, 2014 08:15AM

Week ending 10/04: The Captive, to page 462 / location 444610
By Renato · 80 posts · 19 views

last updated Dec 15, 2014 09:04AM

What Members Thought

Jun 20, 2011 David Lentz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Modern Library's Volume V deals with the relationship between Marcel and Albertine. It is a complex, psychological relationship to say the least. In the Captive, Albertine lives with Marcel in his apartment in Paris and in The Fugitive one wonders who is, in fact, more captive -- Albertine or Marcel. It would seem to be Albertine for whom Marcel possesses an obsessive love and concurrent fear of her sapphic penchant. But it is also Marcel who will sacrifice experience if he makes a commitment to Modern Library's Volume V deals with the relationship between Marcel and Albertine. It is a complex, psychological relationship to say the least. In the Captive, Albertine lives with Marcel in his apartment in Paris and in The Fugitive one wonders who is, in fact, more captive -- Albertine or Marcel. It would seem to be Albertine for whom Marcel possesses an obsessive love and concurrent fear of her sapphic penchant. But it is also Marcel who will sacrifice experience if he makes a commitment to her. Who is more free, the captive or the fugitive? Proust raises questions about how to serve best the artist's quest for beauty. In fact, how does one really ever "capture" the beauty of life in art or music or literature? Even in a masterpiece, is it not beauty the fugitive that usually dwells just beyond one's capture? Or like Vinteuil's septet or the music of Wagner or the painting of Rembrandt, is the best for which one can hope of fugitive beauty only a brief fleeting experience? Are the vast tracts of time spent to understand the beauty and meaning of life worth it? As a writer does he not habitually surrender life in order to capture it? Or is the pursuit of the capture of the beauty of life in fact where one realizes its most sublime value? One sees in Proust toward the end of The Fugitive a member of society who respects it but chooses by reasons of health not to position himself so visibly within it. Despite his family name and vast but dwindling fortune inherited from his beloved grandmother, he seems to become somewhat ultimately disenchanted with the intricacies of Faubourg-St. Germain society to which he devotes so much of his writing. He recognises society's shallow obsession with materialism and rampant snobbery but his own place in society is captured by its complex history and tacit rules and Marcel is inescapably a captive of his own culture. When Albertine is lost to him toward the end of the volume, as in the prior volumes, the story line's serial intrigue advances most. Characters from prior volumes reappear, reminiscent of Balzac, whom Proust adored, but like him they change,too, and usually for the worse over time. The great tapestry of the characters of Proust -- Albertine, Gilberte, Swann, Brichot, Bloch, Charlus, Morel, Saint-Loup -- ultimately surprise and usually disappoint him. As to nagging questions about Proust's own orientation, "Personally I found it absolutely immaterial from a moral standpoint whether one took one's pleasure with a man or a woman, and only too natural and human that one should take it where one could find it." I found myself wishing that Proust had written more about Bloch and Saint-Loup and Gilberte, and less about Albertine. But she was, like his work, the one obsession, the endeavor of which understanding he could never escape and never quite marry -- she was his beauty and his art. She was the breath of life itself from his pen and from his experience of life as seen through the eyes of a true genius. ...more

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Oct 31, 2013 Joni Cornell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-classic

Marcel encourages Albertine to come to Paris to live with him, while he proceeds to hide her from his friends. Marcel cannot bear to have Albertine involved with her girlfriends, in what he imagines as lesbian relations. But familiarity makes him bored with his ‘prisoner’. He’s ‘with her’ to keep her from others who may love her and want to possess her. He spends a fortune on gowns for her and making her into a work of art and dreams of escaping to Venice. Being in love is a lot of hard work to Marcel encourages Albertine to come to Paris to live with him, while he proceeds to hide her from his friends. Marcel cannot bear to have Albertine involved with her girlfriends, in what he imagines as lesbian relations. But familiarity makes him bored with his ‘prisoner’. He’s ‘with her’ to keep her from others who may love her and want to possess her. He spends a fortune on gowns for her and making her into a work of art and dreams of escaping to Venice. Being in love is a lot of hard work to hide from the one loved one’s true feelings; and what makes one bother when familiarity will make love take flight. It makes me wonder whether there are people in my life like Marcel and Albertine, who never tell you what they really feel about things. But Marcel doesn’t come right out and ask Albertine about what he imagines as her subterfuges, and he relies on other people’s opinions. Sometimes you wonder whether it’s taking place in the narrator’s mind. It is ambiguous who the real ‘prisoner’ is. You get the impression that it’s Marcel’s love/love object/obsession that makes him a prisoner.

I found The Prisoner quite claustrophobic to read and perhaps that is the point. When Albertine ‘escapes’ one can’t help thinking ‘finally’ and clap the escapee.

The tone of The Fugitive is quite different – Marcel panics when he realizes that not being true to his feelings, or leading Albertine to think things untrue, have their consequences. I liked how there are chapters and thus a pause for reflection. I find that the problem with The Prisoner – is there are not enough spaces between words for the reader to pause for reflection or to pause to allow digestion. It would be frivolous to say ‘too many words’ but often there are too many words about gossipy events, such as who is sleeping or has slept with whom. Yet I suppose life is like this – gossip among other things more of consequence or of meaning. But sometimes you wish just cut the crap and get to the gems. Unfortunately, often the gem is plonked in crap.
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